We're So Board!
We're So Board!
Episode 24 - PARKS
In this episode, we're strapping into our hiking shoes, grabbing the camera, and visiting some PARKS! This game has players controlling two hikers on scenic hiking trails as they gather gear and resources to visit national parks all around the United States. The beautiful art sets players at ease and the theme makes it feel more like a relaxing journey than a competitive game. Listen to find out how we really let time get away from us on this game and how it turns out how aesthetic is actually really important to Jake, in games and elsewhere in life!
Hello and welcome. I'm Rachel. I'm Jake. And we're so bored. The Podcast where each episode we take a close look at a tabletop game and discuss our personal experiences with said game to help answer the question, Will this cure our boredom?
Jake:That's right, we looked at the mechanics, complexity replayability and a game to determine if it's the perfect alternative to say, well moving your desk into another office then setting up and obsessively trying to cable manage your three consoles, your PC and your monitor, all of which are stationed at your desk in the new office.
Rachel:And I would just like to point out that this obsessive person thinks that you can't take the Ethernet cable from your PC and plug it into your Playstation. Like that's just too hard. It is too hard.
Jake:You have to move it. Well. The consoles are in these cubbies on the side of the desk. So yes, it's difficult. But before we get started speaking of consoles, I am starting to stream on a semi regular schedule. When this comes out. I will be streaming on January 21 and 22nd. That's Friday and Saturday. You can find me on Twitch at Naughty Doc 541. That's an Aug HTYDOC 541 comm check it out. I'd really love it and appreciate it. If anybody wanted to stop in and say hello. Tell us how you feel about the podcast. Tell me what you feel about the stream. Love feedback. Sometimes I'm on there too. Yes, sometimes Rachel is on there. Yeah, we played while the other day together. We did. But go check it out. I've got some videos up that have been saved. Yeah, that'd be cool. But in the world of board gaming. Today, we are talking about parks. I'm so glad that this week we're not doing a game that has food in it because all I could think about is food. We're on a keto diet right now. And all I want is pizza. All I want is a bean and cheese burrito. Oh, man, we should get that steam up game that has you making the dim sum. Yeah, dim sum sounds amazing. Oh, yes. But we are talking about parks. Yes, Parks is a resource management game where you control a pair of hikers that are traveling down these different hiking trails throughout the different seasons of the year. Yeah, Parks was published actually in 2019. By Keymaster games. It was designed by Henry Oban. I believe that's how that said, the artist is credited 259 Parks print series, I'm not sure if that's one individual or if that's like a series of artists that are in a group. Regardless, the artwork is awesome. This game has been nominated for at least 11 Game Awards and has won at least two of them, including the 2019 board game quest, best game for my small publisher and best family game. Another interesting fact about this game is 1% of all sales of this game is donated to the National Park Service. That's really cool. That is really cool.
Rachel:And I definitely agree with it being like a best family game. This is a very good family game, I feel.
Jake:Oh, yeah, you can definitely play this with the kiddos. Speaking of how you play the game.
Rachel:Yeah, the goal, like in many other games is to earn the most points. You do that by visiting national parks, taking pictures and achieving personal bonuses while you're hiking on these trails. It's a pretty small board that you set up that's just got kind of a couple of different decks of cards on it. You've got canteens, which you can fill up with water as you're hiking, and they will give you like bonus resources or sometimes some other things that are just kind of little nice to haves. You've got the seasons deck, which this describes what the weather is like on the trail and any other special conditions that might be in place for visiting national parks. So sometimes they'll say it costs less of a particular resource to visit parks during that season.
Jake:Those are my favorite seasons. You've got the gear
Rachel:deck, which are more little special bonuses that grant you discounts free resources or like alternate actions that you can take while hiking. And you can start to see some engine building a little bit with these cards. So they're definitely worth it. There's three available for purchase at a time on the board. And then the last deck of cards that we have is the actual parks deck and so these are like these really large cards that are filled up almost entirely with this just beautiful artwork of various national parks from around The United States at the bottom, it will describe a certain set of resources that are required in order to go and visit them. There's again three of those available at
Jake:a time. The resources available are sunshine, mountain trees, and water. Those are what you need to accumulate on the trail, which we'll talk about next, and then spend to visit those parks to get those victory points. So the personal bonus objective comes from a deck, it's called your objectives deck or the year deck year of each person gets to have these cards at the beginning of the game, they get to pick one and keep it and some of the examples that we have our visit parks that require certain resources like the sun, like the water, take a certain number of pictures at parks, which is an action you can do on the trail, and visit parks that are worth high numbers of victory points, I got this one last game, and I was supposed to visit parks that were worth four victory points, the trail is made up of these tiles that are shuffled to create a unique path through each game, each new season one tile gets added to the trail. So you start with a smaller number, then you will end with at the end of the game. So each round gets progressively slightly longer, you set up with the weather. So you draw a card from the weather deck that will give you that round condition on the trail. It will also tell you what resources to place on tiles.
Rachel:Yeah, so that'll describe like a weather pattern of like, sun, sun rain. And so what you'll do is you will place resources in that pattern along the trail, starting on the second tile, yeah, skipping the first tile on the trail, and then you would go son on the second one son on the third one, water on the fourth one, and then he would repeat the pattern for as long as the trail goes, right. And those become additional resources that you can pick up as you hiked on the trail. So basically, the first person to get to that tile gets to pick up that resource along with doing whatever action is associated with that tile. So the tile types, there are several that are basically you just get resources. So that sun, water mountain or trees, we have one that is trade any one resource for a wild token resource, that just means that it represents any resource. And I really like these wild tokens, because it's not like they're all the same. They are all in the shape of different animals that you might find in parks, I think it's a really cool little added effect that you've got just these unique little animal tokens that you can get.
Jake:I definitely agree that that's something that is not necessary, but it's very nice that is included in this game.
Rachel:Yeah, you've got a tile that will allow you to either get a canteen or take a picture. So the canteens we already talked about, you can fill that up with water and it gives you little special effects. The pictures are worth one victory point each it costs to have any resource for you to take a picture if you don't have the camera, which is just a little cardboard thing that gets passed around. So if you don't have the camera takes two resources, if you do have the camera, it's called being on a roll. And it only costs one resource to take a picture. And then after you take a picture, you get the camera if you didn't have it, then we have traded resource for another resource up to two times. So you can't trade for the wild resources on this one. But you can trade son for water or you know any other combination thereof up to two times, you can reserve or visit a park, which is the cards with the beautiful art that are laying on the board,
Jake:also known as the victory point cards. Yes,
Rachel:and reserving means that you are taking it into your hand like you don't have the resources to pay to visit it yet, but you're kind of reserving it for yourself so that no one else can take it later. If you have the resources when you have the opportunity to visit a park, you can go and do that instead of one of the ones that's on the board. And then lastly, there's a tile that allows you to copy the action of another tile if a hiker is on it and that costs one water. That's a pretty cool action that allows you to do things where you might not have had the opportunity to land on a tile as other hikers are on it and gives you some flexibility. Those are the actions that you can take along the trail.
Jake:Once your hiker reaches the end of the trail, you have some options of what you can do. You can reserve a park in this area of the end of the trail if you are the first person to reach the end of the trail and you choose to reserve a park you will also get the first player token so next round or next season, you will get to go first. You can also purchase a piece of gear. The first one or two people depending on how many people are playing will get to purchase a piece of gear with a son too. discount, normally they cost between two and three. So you'll get a discount, which is nice. The last action you could take is to visit apart, and you have to have the required resources to visit it at that time, or else, you're just going to reserve it, and that's in a different slot. And you could visit the parks that are available on the board, or you can visit a park from your hand that you've previously reserved.
Rachel:So that's kind of the setup and the rules. So as you're playing the game, you are controlling one of your two hikers at a time to move down the trail, you can choose either one to move as it gets around to your turn. So it's not like you have to get one all the way down to the end before you can move the other one. So it's just kind of whichever one you want to try and take advantage of at the time, you can move to any tile in front of you. The only exception to that is that if there is another hiker on the tile, you have to pay a price basically to land on that same tile, and that is in the form of a camp fire that you are extinguishing. So your camp fire represents this ability to camp at the same place as someone else. Once that's extinguished, you can't use it again, until you get one hiker to the end of the trail, then it refreshes and you can use it one more time. So you go down the trail collecting the various resources or taking whatever actions you come across, you only move one hiker at a time per turn. And you kind of just keep going like landing on tiles trying to get various resources to meet your personal objective goal. And taking advantage of what you can there becomes, you know, kind of this little dance that you're doing with the rest of the players because you only have the opportunity to land on a space with another hiker once before you get someone to the end. And so what other people are doing directly affects your ability to take your next turn and where you can land that might affect your strategy and what you're kind of focusing on based on what's really available to you at the time. Jake and I have played this game, just the two of us before and then we played recently with four people. And it was definitely a lot more like crowded. Yeah, crowded, that's a good word. It was a lot more crowded in the four player game where it's like, oh, I don't have a ton of options. And I really do have to carefully choose where I'm going to use my campfire. And where I want to go.
Jake:Yeah, the two player game I can manage pretty well. The four player game I didn't do so great. Yeah, so it was a tie for third and I was in third. So I did the worst, but I wasn't alone. So that's okay. The round ends when there is only one hiker left on the trail. So it's kind of a risk, having only one hiker on the trail at a time of your own because then somebody could end the game at any time. Right? If it's you and another person, you want to be the one to probably get your hiker off of there before they do,
Rachel:potentially. I mean, it's not like there's any penalty for being the last hiker on the trail. Except that, you know, if you had something that you were still planning on going to in front of you.
Jake:Yeah, that's kind of what I'm getting at. If you have something ahead of you that you want to get done. You better get done quick. Yeah, because that person could end it. Yeah, you
Rachel:have to kind of prioritize, you don't have the option to go just step by step tile by tile one at a time and land on every single thing and do everything. It's not gonna work.
Jake:Yeah, at the end of the season, the person with the camera can choose to take one picture for one resource. All the water from the canteens that you own are discarded all the hikers and move back to the beginning of the trail, the trails reshuffled, and you add one new tile in, and then you repeat until the end of the fourth round, and to the fourth round of games over.
Rachel:Yep. And just one clarification, the canteens themselves are not discarded, you get to keep those, it's just the water on them gets discarded. And so you have the ability to refill it up on the next trail. Yes, but that's basically the game, you're just kind of moving along this trail. And there's a there's not a ton of actions that you take on your turn is so I kind of sold this game as something that could be done quick ish. And that's going to get into our experiences section here. Next, the idea was, Oh, we're going to get this done really quickly. And then we can play something else also. And we ended up spending like three hours playing this game. I don't even know how we managed to do that. Not because of any kind of additional complications or it's not like something came up in the game. It was really just kind of everybody hanging out and talking and chilling. And I feel like the game kind of sets you up to be in that type of mood. It's a very relaxing kind of laid back game. The you don't have to be like thinking about 10 turns ahead, and you have the ability to kind of relax and just enjoy it. It kind of reminds me of wingspan in that way.
Jake:I mean, I disagree that you don't have to be thinking 10 turns that had I do that. And then a two player game, I can manage that pretty well. But in a four player game, I think with the two added people who hadn't played the game before, it added more time, but it also made the game feel crowded, like we were all vying for these spots. And then when one would get taken, the next person would try to think of okay, well, what am I going to do now? So I think it did add some time to the game, having it be a four player game.
Rachel:Okay, so yeah, it can be a little bit thinkI. But it doesn't have to be. No, it doesn't. And I feel like with four people is not worth it being super thinkI. Because what you're planning on doing right now could change by the time it gets back around to you. So I don't know. Although I did at the very end, like in the last season, I had like a moment of clarity, where I was like, oh, man, this is my bonus objective. And typically, the bonus objectives have like two levels of it. If you do a certain number of thing like the initial number, then you get this many bonus points. But if you do even more, you get this many bonus points. And so I had met the objective to do like the first level, and I had kind of accepted that I wasn't going to be able to get the second level. But then in the last round, I had kind of this moment of Aha, I can do this if everything works out exactly perfectly. And it required me to be able to land on more pictures, like be able to take a picture with both of my hikers as they were walking down the trail, and then also be able to land on the copy spot while someone else was taking a picture. So that I could copy that and take one more picture. And so I was a little nervous that it wasn't going to work. But it really did ended up working out because Matt was also really into taking pictures. And so I was like, okay, you know, he's gonna be the one that's gonna land on that spot. And let me do this. I gotta be patient. I just got to be patient and wait for him to get there. But yeah, I don't know, it was a lot of fun.
Jake:Well, it's good. I mean, I had fun as well. Even though I didn't win.
Rachel:I know. Oh, still had fun. We also saw a little bit of engine building. On Matt side, he had a lot of gear cards that were giving him like discounts on visiting parks, and also allowing him to convert, I think he was able to convert trees into suns or something like that when visiting a park. So he could just replace it with that one resource. And so he had a little bit of an engine going that was allowing him to visit a bunch of stuff towards the end and starting to feel a little oop, over there. Like maybe he would have made some significant progress if there was one more round in the game.
Jake:I mean, yes, I think so. But there are definitely engine building elements, if you buy the right gear that comes up. But the gear deck is not super small. I think there's probably like 30 or 35 cards in there. There are some repeats. Yeah, there are some but I mean, there are a lot of options. Mm hmm. The other thing, I mean, Rachel mentioned the relaxing and kind of low stress feeling of this game. I think that that is really well baked into the game itself, it really makes you feel like this is just kind of a chill experience. And I like that. Also the artwork, that artwork is awesome. Each park does have its own unique art for it. But I feel like it may or may not be done by a different person. Because they are so unique. Like the art styles are not all the same.
Rachel:Artist 59 Parks prints series, I see what you're saying. A group of artists that did the illustrations for parks. Yeah,
Jake:yeah. So each one I believe is done by a different artist. And you can tell that they are all different, just based on how the artist done.
Rachel:I wouldn't say that every single one is different. But there's definitely multiple artists.
Jake:Right? Every Park does have its unique artwork, though. There's not a repeat in the art on the park cards. And I like that a lot.
Rachel:And actually, there are repeats in parks, like there's two Grand Canyon cards at least. But they both have unique art on them, which is really cool.
Jake:Yes, I really liked that about this game.
Rachel:I agree. That is definitely one of the kind of highlights of it. And I think that also adds to just the relaxing feeling of just it's really kind of beautiful to sit back and look at Yeah, it is. Um, the only other thing that I wanted to add is the rulebook feels really nice. So I've said this once before about wingspan and it's got that same kind of vellum feel. I don't know exactly what it is, but it is quality. And I just love how it feels in my hands. So I don't know. I just want to throw that out there. Actually, no. The other thing I want to throw out there is that I love the insert. Everything has its exact place where it goes. Now granted, you really should lay the box flat. Things don't stay in place if you stand it up. Not at all. Not even close. Yeah, so that's unfortunate. But everything fits in the box in a very specific place. And it just feels really good to put the game away. And like pack it all in. It's like, oh, yeah, this is the place for the first player token, this is the place for the camera. It all just fits together like a really nice puzzle.
Jake:Okay, so that's kind of our experiences with this game. We've played it several times, and we like it pretty well. There is an expansion available for this game that we do not have yet. The Knightfall expansion. It was released in 2021. It adds 17 new park cards all with unique artwork, it adds new year and season cards. So new bonus objectives and new round bonuses or objectives as well as a new camping mechanic that I couldn't figure out what that is you do get a little tent token for you. And that has to do with the camping mechanic. Obviously, that is separate from the campfire. Hmm, okay. Also 1% of all sales of the expansion also go to support the National Park Service.
Rachel:Yeah, and more beautiful art and everything. I wanted to look up how expensive all of this was. So the expansion is currently on Amazon for $25. But I'm not actually seeing the original game.
Jake:You can buy it directly from key masters website key Master games.com. It is $49. For the Parks Board Game, the Knightfall expansion is $25. Obviously, this is without shipping. And there is another it's not an expansion for this, there's a different game with a very similar theme from the same company called trails. Instead of it being this type of game. It's a simple matching game. So I think it's designed for an even younger crowd. Yeah, it also has great artwork like parks. The sales of this also benefit the National Park Service.
Rachel:Mm hmm. The base game is rated at 7.8 On Board Game Geek with 13,000 Reviews. That feels pretty accurate to me. I think it represents that it's a good quality game family friendly, seems like a good solid reading to me. Yeah, I
Jake:agree. I also think that it cast such a wide net for a demographic. So it's easy enough that anybody can play it. But it's got enough meat in it that it could be kind of a thinkI game if everybody wanted to play that way, which I think is one of the reasons took us a longer time to play. But I think he's got such a high rating because it appeals to so many people.
Rachel:Yeah. And then the Nightfall expansion has a rating of 8.3 was 1600 reviews. So we see this where typically expansions don't have as much player ship, or as many reviews as the base game itself. But it's still very high.
Jake:This is probably because you know of the 13,000 reviewers, the people who rated it highly, probably went and got the expansion because they liked the game. So they rate the expansion high because they like it. And if they fall in that demographic of the people who've rated highly in like parks, and they like this as well, because it's well done, probably naturally has a higher review, because less people at higher statistics and math. Not my favorite.
Rachel:Anyway, yes, it makes sense. So yeah, I would definitely recommend it. Not a ton of money. It's good quality. And I feel like you know, you're gonna get yourself a good experience with it.
Jake:Yeah, I totally agree with that. Alright, so
Rachel:let's talk about our rating section. So the first one we like to look at is easy versus difficult. This is how difficult is it to understand the rules. Do you have to keep going back and looking at the rulebook? Do you have to look stuff up as you're playing the game? Is it written? Well, does it make sense? I'm gonna say that this is a fairly easy game. I actually hadn't played the game in a while when we just played it recently and had to refresh myself on the rules. Normally, I wouldn't like to do that as people are already over at our house playing the game. But this wasn't too difficult for me to get back into. I was able to kind of breeze through it. And it was really just kind of the setup of where everything goes that I was really looking for just a couple other specific rules. I feel like the rulebook is organized well and it actually has an FAQ At the back, so that if there's anything that is not completely clear, or you know, a little bit ambiguous, they try to answer those questions for you.
Jake:I have not read the rulebook, it is not something I do. But as far as easy versus difficult, I would say this game probably is a three or a four on the difficulty scale, it's made to be easy. It's made to be family friendly, that you can play with your kids, you can play with your grandma, it's not a game that is going to be exclusive. It's very inclusive for all, all age groups, all sorts of people can play this game. So I think it's made to be easy. And it is, I think they've done a very good job at making it as easy as possible to learn.
Rachel:Yeah, I agree. So yeah, I'm gonna give it a three. Okay, next is simple versus complex. This is talking about the strategy of the game. So how complex is it in terms of your devising a strategy to win, if that's confusing with easy versus difficult? Think about chess, chess only has so many rules, and so many moves that each piece can make. And so in that way, it's easy to learn what those rules are. But it's extremely complex in how you can use those rules and come up with different strategies to win. Yes, for this game, I'm going to say that it's fairly simple, there isn't a ton of strategizing, I don't think, although there can be some it can be. But it is, in my opinion, very laid back. And the fact that there's only like one thing, basically, that you can do on your turn, and it's really affected by what other players are doing that makes it so that you don't always have control over what you're doing. Makes it a little bit more random, maybe which we will talk about next. But I think that affects your ability to strategize and makes it a little bit of a simpler game,
Jake:especially with a larger group, you're really limited on what you have available as far as your trail slots where you can go. So yes, I think that that kind of cuts back on the complexity a little bit. But I'd still give this I think about a four, three or four. That's what I was thinking of for. Okay, our final rating, like Rachel just said, is the rote versus random. This is what mechanics make each gameplay a unique experience, what changes to change the game each time. So there's a few things that are randomized, there are the trail tiles, those get shuffled, the seasons get shuffled, your objective is random at the beginning of the game, and the park cards are shuffled as well. That being said, there's only so much that you can do on your turn, like Rachel said, there's not a whole lot, it's all dictated by where you move your piece on the trail. So I don't think it's super random, there are some changing elements. So for this, I would give it a three or four, maybe a five at the most four or five things that are changing each time, but they are not pivotal to the gameplay itself.
Rachel:Yeah, cuz, okay, so we can talk about the season, and the parks, and even your secret objective, those are all shuffled, but it really doesn't change how you're going to go about playing the game, in my opinion, you're always going to come across parks that will meet whatever objective you get, or, you know, you're always going to have the opportunity to meet that objective, it's not possible for that randomness to kind of screw you over in the game, you're always going to be able to do that no matter what. And so I almost kind of de consider that randomization, all that does is really spice up the game a little bit. Okay, the part that I think is really what affects the gameplay is the tiles for the trail, and you know, the order in which those are placed, you're always going to end up with the same tiles. But because you start out with fewer, and you add more as the seasons go on, you have certain advanced tile slots that are not going to be available until the very last round of the game. And so that will probably affect a little bit your ability to form a strategy. For example, in the game that we played the copy ability that was the one that wasn't available until that last season, and not having that makes it so that you can only perform actions on the actual tile that has that action. So you have to think about really what your strategy is and where you're going to use your campfire. You don't have an opportunity to try and make it up somewhere else along the trail. You know, versus if you got it earlier. That would become a part of your strategy where Oh, it's okay. If somebody is on this particular tile that I want. I can move to the copy tile and get it done. that way, right without having to consume my campfire. So I don't know, that's the part that I think is really where it takes effect. But everything else I kind of like it, you know, it's whatever. And so because there's really not that much to it, I think I'm going to give it a three in randomness.
Jake:Three. All right, yeah. I'm gonna say a four, I think.
Rachel:Okay. All right, Jake. Well, it's time to tell me, would you rather play this game, then move into another office and set up and obsessively try to manage your cables for three consoles and a PC, which are all stationed at your single desk?
Jake:Here's the thing. Initially, yes, I would rather play this game. But once I get into the cable management, like I'm in the zone, and I'm ready to go. And I got to get it done. Yeah. But initially starting it Yes. much rather play the game. Mm hmm.
Rachel:I get that cable management man has never been something that I'm like into.
Jake:It's got to look pretty. Yeah, you've got
Rachel:this need for everything to look really nice. And so Jake actually has a like a clear glass screen on his computer so that you can see how pretty everything is inside. And so all of the inside of his PC is actually really nicely cable managed as well. Not only that, he had to get like certain colors of cables in order to match the aesthetic of everything.
Jake:It wasn't hard. I'm doing a black and white build for the PC. So
Rachel:I know, but you like went out of your way to make sure that you had black and white cables. I mean, yes. I don't know. But it was funny anyway.
Jake:And black and white RAM and a black and white cooler. Yeah, yeah.
Rachel:So anyway, maybe you should post a picture of your PC on on social media. Oh,
Jake:I people don't want to see that. Well, that's it. That's parks. Thank you for listening.
Rachel:Yes, please hit us up on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram app. So board podcast. That's S O B Oard. Podcast. We love hearing from you guys and interacting with you. You can tell us about any fun experiences or house rules that you have playing this game. Or you can also see the short stories and the pictures that we post about the games that we're playing. You can also email us at We are so bored@gmail.com. So that's w e a r e s o b oard@gmail.com. And lastly, please hit that subscribe button so that you receive notifications when we release new episodes we release every other Tuesday. It's pretty consistent. But if you hit the subscribe button, it just makes sure that you are aware when that happens. And leave us a rating that's really helpful for us and for other people to find our podcast. And I don't know if you know, but you can now leave ratings on Spotify. So we'd really appreciate if you want to give us some stars there.
Jake:Yes, we would really appreciate that. Once again, I'm gonna be streaming Friday and Saturday after this comes out. So that's the 21st 22nd on Twitch at Naughty Doc 541 and a ug ht YDOC 541. I play all sorts of games also open to suggestions. I'm playing inscription right now. Spooky Scary card game.
Rachel:Yeah, it's pretty cool looking. We also want to give a shout out to the people who knew that we were reviewing parks based on the picture that we posted last week. So congrats to Doug gagged on me, Glenn wing, Greg Jackson, Nicole Ferran Holtz, and Jessica Lunt. Awesome job, guys.
Jake:We also want to thank Mitchell Mims, the designer of our art, he is accepting commission so go check him out on Instagram at MIMSCO Sa ra or on his website, Michel Mims. That's EMI ch e l m i m s.ca rd.co. Well, that's
Rachel:it folks. Thank you so much for listening and we will see you next time. Bye. Hi